If you are at work and you see the private mobile phone records of President-elect Barack Obama, no matter how enticing, you must resist the urge to take a quick peek. Several Verizon Wireless employees succumbed to that temptation and have found themselves in a heap of trouble. According to a press release on Thursday, a number of employees were caught browsing through Obama’s cell phone records. The mobile account was for a flip phone, rumored to be a Razr, that had been inactive for several months. The records that were breached included call times, phone numbers of incoming/outgoing calls, numbers of text messages sent/received, etc. The employees in question reportedly did not have access to the content of any email, text or voice messages. Verizon initially put all employees who had access to Obama’s account on leave while it conducted an investigation. Late on Friday, Verizon announced that the matter was publicly closed, appropriate federal law enforcement agencies had been contacted and the offending employees were fired. An internal investigation is continuing to see if the information was shared only amongst internal employees or if the information was sent to any outside third parties.
Thanks, Rosario!
